It’s an appropriate exercise for Advent that a growing number of members of the SLU community are meeting at noon each day for common prayer. As we await tomorrow’s Trustee meeting, both the Post Dispatch and the Beacon have printed major analytical pieces about the crisis at SLU. News of serious concern among the trustees is leaking out, some of it not bad. Apparently at least some trustees are trying to address the issues and concerns that have been brought to light by the faculty and student revolt. I don’t know whether to hope or not; so I’ll hope, and pray that I’m not wrong.

On another front, today’s New York Times carries a story about the hate campaign orchestrated by the Institute on Religion and Democracy against All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena. The IRD is not a church or a religious organization. It is a right-wing political organization (Rev. Chuck Currie calls it a think tank). The attack began with an IRD sponsored piece by Ryan Mauro published at frontpagemag.com, but IRD has deep pockets and lots of connections that enable it to orchestrate potent email mob attacks.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council will be holding its annual conference at All Saints Church tomorrow. The event offers IRD three of its favorite targets for smear campaigns, LGBT friendly churches, ecumenism, and Islam. The Times quotes the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr., Rector of All Saints, about the virulence of the attack:

I’ve been called names all my life from the ultraconservative reactionary position, but this is a level of demeaning that I’ve not seen before. Demeaning not just of me, but of the Muslim faith, of this organization, the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran.

While it might be tempting to write this off as Michelle Bachman (or Joseph McCarthy) all over again, All Saints and MPAC have been forced, as reported by the Times, to seek aid from local police and private security guards to protect those who will be attending the meeting.

Happily, All Saints is also receiving positive email. The Rev. Susan Russell, a Senior Associate at All Saints notes on her blog that “the positive and negative are trending just about equally” and characterizes the MPAC partnership as a “witness to interfaith peacemaking,” noting, as the Times does, that the Los Angeles Times called the effort a mitzvah in a recent editorial. Pastor Russell also urges her readers to “pray for the people who send us this kind of polemic—that they be healed of the fear that blinds them to the neighbor God loves just as much as God loves them.” I also wrote about this very thing recently. Here’s a link to that piece.

And now, as I write, my beloved is watching the appalling news reports about the school shootings in Connecticut. I’m going to close this piece as Pastor Russell closes one of hers.

—Kyrie eleison